As regards the second point, it is clear that in the discourse,² where Christ recommends as essential the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, He had in mind neither the Supper nor any other definite act. He wished rather to indicate in how profound a sense He Himself must become our being and well-being; and clearly, if we compare His words here with that other saying that we must be related to Him as the branch to the vine,³ there is no difference between the two except this—that the latter lays stress more on the continuity of the relationship, the former on its periodical renewal. Nor can anyone doubt that the same expression may be used to denote the periodically recurring effect of the Supper; and not merely the effect which it has on the fellowship of the individual with Christ, as a repeated nourishing of personal spiritual life out of the fulness of Christ’s life, but the effect which it is also bound to exert on our fellowship with each other. For, as it is a simultaneous act of many, and has the same effect in all, the consciousness of benefit in each is accompanied by a sympathetic sense that the same thing is happening to others; and as each knows that the others are being united more closely with Christ, he feels himself more closely united with them. This is not in any sense an exclusive relation to each other of those who are communicating at any one time; as explained above, each represents to the others the whole congregation. But while indisputably the spiritual participation in the flesh of Christ referred to above can take place more generally in a variety of ways, the Lord’s Supper is distinct from all else in this respect that in it the same result is bound up with this definite action, blessed and hallowed by the word of Christ. In itself this is not something unintelligible to believers or requiring special explanation, all the more that it follows the analogy of all important memorial rites; and deeply as the external side of the action, in its actual form, appeals to us by its varied significance, we yet can easily concede that if it had pleased Christ to give His ordinance a different form we should nevertheless expect from it the same result, and that that outward form would soon have come to possess a like suggestiveness of meaning. Hence anything that is obscure and, in the degree in which it is explained, more or less unintelligible is to be found solely in the terms used by Christ in relating the outward action to the effect as above described.

3. With a view to more exact discussion of this, assuming (as our paragraph does) that the effect of the action depends on the action being in harmony with Christ’s institution, we must first clear up our minds on the point, what precisely such harmony implies. Even if different parties did not protest that the Supper as celebrated by others than themselves was no Supper at all, the variety of eucharistic practice within the Church sufficiently declares that on this point no agreement has so far been reached. It is not difficult, however, to show that such agreement is impossible. As regards both the action and the elements used there are a material and a formal identity which, owing to changed modes of life, cannot be attained together, but only one at the cost of the other; and in such a situation it is virtually impossible that all should make their choice on the same principle. In general it may be said that insistence on material identity betrays an imperfect inward state, and a truly spiritual Christianity without troubling about the matter would be content if only the rite were so arranged as to represent the original action in its essential features. On the one hand, the historical unity and continuity of the ordinance would be endangered, and there would be no limit to the arbitrary variations introduced, if we were to be wholly indifferent to material identity. On the other, the representation of the original action may be made to depend on quite different points. Hence the problem to be solved can hardly be stated otherwise than by saying that we ought to try for just so much of each sort of identity as can be obtained without sacrifice on the other side. Thus in regard to the elements, we ask that in the Supper there should be eaten what, as used, can rightly be called bread, but not that it should be prepared from the ordinary materials or in the ordinary way; on the other hand, that in what is drunk there should be wine of the grape, but not the common drink of this place or that, even supposing the common drink to be something different from wine. In regard to the action, we consider it essential that all the communicants should eat and drink in the same way, and that bread and wine should be distributed and received, also that the action as a common meal should follow upon a devotional address and common prayer. But that it should take place in the evening and be merely the conclusion of another more complete meal, in itself of a worshipping character, so that what is partaken of in the Supper is only what remains over from the former meal—this, it would seem, we cannot insist on, for under present conditions it is unattainable. Indeed, if, still keeping to the last point, it were held that the Supper had such a close relation to the Jewish feast of the Passover that no representation of the impression originally made could be attained unless the Passover too were represented in all its original significance, it would be easy to infer that in that case the Supper can never again be what in Christ’s institution it was, and therefore cannot really have been ordained by Him for the Church as an independent and never-ending institution. This objection is so natural that it may yet easily make itself more audible in the Evangelical Church than has hitherto been the case, and it of course raises the question on what in this matter our faith really rests. It can hardly be maintained that the intention to institute a permanent rite is revealed with perfect clearness in the words of Christ, as they have actually been preserved. On the contrary, some of the narratives contain no such injunction;⁴ in others it is only indistinctly expressed;⁵ and as the Apostles deduced no such command from Christ’s words at the foot-washing,⁶ they could (it is said) have had no more right to make of the Supper a perpetual and universal institution.⁷ But as it is obvious that they did the one and did not do the other, we may well keep to the procedure they actually enjoined, without having to decide whether Christ expressly gave them still other injunctions touching the Supper,⁸ or whether they deduced such injunctions from His words, or whether it was simply by their direct impressions of the case or by the accompanying circumstances that they were led to take different courses in regard to the Supper and in regard to the foot-washing. In the last of these cases we should not be able to view the Supper as in quite the same sense directly instituted by Christ, but we should still have to hold that the Apostles acted in His sense—unless, indeed, we are going to give up their canonical authority in a matter which touches the very heart and core of their vocation.

§ 140. With regard to the connexion between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, the Evangelical (Protestant) Church takes up an attitude of definite opposition only, on the one hand, to those who regard this connexion as independent of the act of participation, and, on the other hand, to those who, regardless of this connexion, would not admit any conjunction between participation in the bread and wine and spiritual participation in the flesh and blood of Christ.

Augs. Conf., Art. 10: ‘On the Lord’s Supper accordingly it is taught that the true body and blood of Christ is veritably present in the Supper under the form of bread and wine, and is there distributed and received.’—Apol. Conf. iv.: Quod in coena domini vere et substantialiter adsint corpus et sanguis Christi, et vere exhibeantur cum illis rebus, quae videntur, pane et vino his qui sacramentum accipiunt… . Cum enim Paulus dicat panem esse participationem corporis domini, sequeretur panem non esse participationem corporis sed tantum spiritus Christi, si non adesset vere corpus domini.—Art. Smalc. vi.: De sacramento altaris sentimus panem et vinum in coena esse verum corpus et sanguinem Christi, et non tantum dari et sumi a piis sed etiam ab impiis Christianis. Expos. simpl. xix.: In coena domini signum est panis et vinum sumtum ex communi usu cibi et potus, res autem significata est ipsum traditum domini corpus, et sanguis eius effusus pro nobis, vel communio corporis et sanguinis domini.—Ibid. xxi.: Foris offertur a ministro panis, et audiuntur voces domini, etc., ergo accipiunt fideles et edunt, etc.: intus interim opera Christi per spiritum sanctum percipiunt etiam carnem et sanguinem domini et pascuntur his in vitam aeternam. —Conf. Gallic. xxxviii.: Dicimus itaque … panem illum et vinum illud, quod nobis in coena datur, vere nobis fieri spirituale alimentum, quatenus videlicet velut oculis nostris spectandum praebent carnem Christi nostrum cibum esse et eiusdem sanguinem nobis esse potum.—Itaque fanaticos illos omnes reiicimus qui haec signa et symbola repudiant. —Conf. Anglic. xxviii.: Panis et vini transsubstantiatio in Eucharistia ex sacris litteris probari non potest, sed apertis scripturae verbis adversatur… . Corpus Christi datur accipitur et manducatur in coena tantum coelesti et spirituali ratione. Medium autem, quo corpus Christi accipitur et manducatur in coena, fides est. 1. If the question in view here were a merely exegetical one, Dogmatic might await the close of hermeneutical discussion, and then accept the result just as it does other propositions which are not dogmatic in the full sense because what they contain is not statements about our immediate self-consciousness but facts which we receive on testimony. It is only as a fact in this sense that we could accept the conclusions of exegesis on the meaning of the words, ‘This is My body,’ etc. But the question is far from being purely exegetical. The language of the different narratives is not uniform; hence (this belongs to historical criticism) we must first of all ascertain what kind of expressions Christ can have used, from which these reports may have arisen; only then will the time have come for inquiring into the sense of Christ’s ipsissima verba as thus ascertained. Here we may start from very different points of view, and it is improbable that we shall be able to fix Christ’s original language in a way to satisfy everyone. Also we are specially bound in dealing with the different views valid within the Evangelical Church to set forth the conviction, fundamental to the Union [of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches], that these differences are not such as to prevent common participation in the Supper. Hence we must endeavour to settle points of controversy as well as may be, and then set forth the principles on which we, so to speak, abolish the differences prevalent within our Church; whereas we should still retain, on the one hand, the points of difference with the Catholic Church brought out in the credal passages quoted above, and, on the other, with communions and individual thinkers who deny all reality to the sacrament.

Now, to fix the points of controversy, since the differences are all due to the words of Christ just cited, and we can only recur here to what has already been made out in the previous paragraph, the question arises how the meaning of His words bears first on participation in the bread and wine, and next, on the strengthening of spiritual life expected from that; a second question is, how far insight into the meaning of these words is requisite to the completeness of the action, and hence how far agreement in their interpretation is requisite to its communal character. To the last of these questions we can only reply by saying that the interpretation of Christ’s words is essential just in so far as the expected result—namely, the strengthening of spiritual life—depends on it; and agreement is only beneficial if differences have to be reconciled which might hinder the common performance of the rite. Regarding the first question we can only say—whether the difficult words uttered by the Redeemer be referred more to the bodily action or to the spiritual effect—that any explanation of them which can establish its own exegetical validity may be accepted as sound, provided it does not endanger for the believer the bond between the action and its effect.

2. The first kind of antagonism stated in our paragraph is that to the Catholic Church. It is on the whole wrong to look for this chiefly in the doctrine of transubstantiation. For the real issue it is an unimportant point of difference whether the body and blood of Christ are partaken of corporeally along with the bread and wine, or the body and blood of Christ are produced in place of bread and wine for corporeal reception. The only distinction between the two is this, that in the one case bread and wine are also partaken of, while in the other we do not partake of them also; and for the intended result this is quite immaterial. And if there had only been a willingness to give up the further notion that this change in the elements persists even apart from the act of reception, or that even what is not partaken of in the Supper undergoes the same change as the rest of the elements, the Saxon Reformers, as may be seen from the third passage quoted above, would have had little to object. On the other hand, if a disposition had been shown in any quarter to take so physical a view of consubstantiation as that the body and blood of Christ are present in the bread and wine, after the words of Christ have been spoken over them, even when they are not partaken of in the Supper, Luther would have made a serious protest. Even where he is setting forth his own view in the strongest antagonism to the Reformed doctrine, he nowhere affirms any such presence of the body and blood outside the eucharistic action; on the other hand, ever since the rise of the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Catholic Church, this assumption of a physical and permanent change has been fundamental in all casuistical discussion. Essentially, therefore, what, on this side, provoked persistent opposition was every kind of elevation and adoration of the consecrated elements, as well as every pretension thereby to achieve something apart from actual participation; and similarly, everywhere within the Evangelical Church it would be distinctly denied that partaking of the consecrated elements outside the celebration of the sacrament conduces either to salvation or to judgment. Hence the chief reason why (apart from its exegetical unsoundness) we reject the theory of the Catholic Church is that, advancing beyond common participation, it seeks by its so conceived union of the elements with the body and blood of Christ to attain quite different ends, and to attach magical spiritual effects to an effect that is bodily.

3. By the second antithesis indicated in our paragraph the Evangelical Church marks itself off from the Sacramentarians—taking that word not, of course, in the sense used by Luther and other theologians in the heat of controversy as applying even to the adherents of the Helvetic and the Gallic Confessions (their opinions lie wholly within the limits laid down in our paragraph), but as denoting those who reject the sacrament. They assert that partaking of the bread and wine indicated by the phrase ‘body and blood’ is only a shadowy emblem of that spiritual participation in the body and blood of Christ which is in no sense bound up with any such sacramental action. and that as soon as we have the assurance of this spiritual reality, the merely figurative action is better given up. Now we own that spiritual participation, to which Christ invited men long before the institution of the Supper as to something not merely future, is in no sense bound up by His institution exclusively with the sacrament or confined to it. None the less we confide in Christ’s word that in the later institution that invitation is so realized in fact by His power that every believer may count on finding spiritual participation in the sacramental action, and that the action, if it be rightly administered in all respects, gives believers certain and infallible access thereto. Hence, as the most perfect common spiritual participation, the Supper is related to private participation in Christ apart from the Supper as the organized is related to the accidental, just as organized edification in public worship is related to edification which is individual and sporadic. But the opposed view, even when it does not deny that spiritual participation may be found in the sacramental action also, none the less protests that the conjunction of the two things is uncertain and purely fortuitous; otherwise it would not seek to dissuade men from communicating. And in this it misconceives the value of Christ’s institution.

Almost the same thing might be said of those who desire that the Supper should be permanently retained in the Church as Christ commanded, yet abolish its connexion with spiritual participation in the body and blood of Christ, declaring it to be no more than a custom whereby we bear witness, or make a profession of faith.⁹ These we oppose, partly because they do not even regard the Supper as the climax of public worship, believing as they do that in the Supper they receive absolutely nothing;¹⁰ which means that to this gathering of people (which is pre-eminently a gathering in Christ’s name) they would not even apply the general promise given by Christ to all such: partly because on their showing the Supper would not be the same thing in every age. For not only was there no one present at the original institution before whom the disciples could bear witness, but the ancient Church did not admit non-Christians as spectators; while in their congregational relationships, apart from the sacrament, there is no lack of opportunities for Christians to make themselves known to each other as members of the Church.

4. If we leave open to the Evangelical Church the whole intervening ground between these two views—the one ascribing a magical value to the sacrament, the other depressing it into a bare sign—the historical reason for this is first of all that at the very beginning of Protestantism two views developed, one of which (within these limits) approximated most to the Catholic view, the other to the Socinian; while on the other hand both clung to a consciousness of common antagonism to the other two. In part there were ever-renewed efforts to reconcile their differences; in part out of these very efforts there arose a third Protestant view intermediate between both. Hence wherever these two views came in contact, the common conviction came in time to prevail that as they all looked for the same result under the same conditions—namely, the presence of true and living faith—each side must believe that the other had the same right as itself to expect this result, since neither could be certain that it was interpreting the connexion between the action and the result (so far as its production is beyond our power) precisely as the Redeemer intended it, while yet each side was eager to conform to the mind of the Redeemer as closely as possible. This conviction rests simply on a recognition of the exegetical difficulties attaching to the manner in which Christ speaks of His body and blood in offering the bread and wine. One side in interpreting words of such significance will admit nothing but literal explanation, which yet they cannot apply consistently owing to the fact that the reports of Christ’s words differ—’ this ‘in one case having’ blood ‘as its predicate,’ cup ‘having’ testament ‘in the other. So that our Supper and the original Supper cannot be the same if the offered body is literally the same as the body offering it. From this the other side argues that this equating of the bread and the body is only to be taken loosely, the former being a sign of the latter. They have then to explain not merely why in that case a special sign of the blood had to be offered in addition to the sign of the body, but also whether the disciples (assuming that they were meant to understand Christ’s language) were intended to interpret His words analogously to previous words of His own, or rather in the light of the Old Testament rite to which Christ’s institution was attached. These problems have not so far all been solved by either side; yet it is possible that new attempts may still be made deserving of a place among the helpful efforts of the Evangelical Church, and that an adequate explanation may at last render all other imperfect ones superfluous. The three views, however, which have stood out from among these imperfect attempts and established their position most firmly may best be exhibited as follows. The first or Lutheran view declares that with the bread and wine Christ conjoined for participation the real presence of His body and blood, but only for the action of bodily partaking in both elements. The second or Zwinglian view declares that Christ conjoined nothing with the bread and wine in themselves; by His command He merely conjoined spiritual participation in His flesh and blood with the action of partaking in the bread and wine. The third or Calvinistic view declares that while it is true that Christ conjoined something exclusively with the action of eating and drinking, this was not merely spiritual participation, available quite apart from the sacrament; it was a real presence of His body and blood not to be had anywhere else.¹¹ The second view recognizes two things only, bodily participation and the spiritual effect, both linked together by the Word. Beyond all question this view is the clearest and the easiest to grasp, for it sets up an exact analogy between the Lord’s Supper and baptism, and leaves the real presence of body and blood (which it is scarcely possible to describe) altogether out of account, so that by sacramental participation it can only mean the conjunction of spiritual participation with bodily participation as defined above. But even though we emphasize the words of Zwingli as just quoted, even though many other expressions by which it might be thought he meant to minimize or even abolish the powers of the sacrament be explained in the light of his polemic against Roman doctrine¹²—still this view leaves it unexplained why, if Christ meant no more than this, He made use of these particular expressions. In addition to these two things, both the other views recognize a third thing, namely, a real presence of Christ’s body and blood. According to Luther, through a special and secret power of the Word this presence is so conjoined with the elements of bread and wine as to yield what resembles bodily participation; according to Calvin, it merely is so conjoined with the believer’s spiritual participation as to yield a peculiar sacramental intensification thereof, to effect which no other power is required than the power of the divine promise familiar to us all. In both theories this supposed third thing explains why Christ had to use such very peculiar expressions in stating His intention. But, apart from the fact that Luther’s view is too near the Roman type not to have encouraged the transference of many superstitious ideas, the mode in which the body of Christ is partaken of along with the bread, as well as the mode in which this sacramental participation differs on the one hand from bodily participation in the symbolic elements, and on the other from spiritual participation in the flesh and blood, is so difficult to make intelligible that while formulæ about it can be composed out of unscripturally devised words, the fact itself can never be made clear. The Calvinistic theory escapes many of these difficulties by holding aloof, alike from the over-intellectual bareness of the Zwinglian view and from the mysterious sensuousness of the Lutheran; but no more than the latter does it succeed in making it clear that we have an interest in the body and blood of Christ, and no more than the former does it yield any explanation of the kind of relation obtaining between the body and the blood, or the ground of distinction between them. Hence, although this view has had a strong power of attraction, it provides new excuses for vacillating between the charm of symbolism which allures men to seek more in the sacrament than is brought out in the explanation itself, and on the other hand resting satisfied with something more external, on the ground that it is impossible to make out what the peculiar significance of the Supper is. We need not therefore expect that this view will become universally predominant in the Evangelical Church. As a result of the steady unprejudiced work of interpreters we may rather expect yet another view to emerge which will not make shipwreck on any of these rocks. Till then it will not be possible to state any common Church doctrine except regarding the effects of the Supper, and all that can be set forth under that head is the contents of the following two paragraphs.

§ 141. First Theorem.—Participation in the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper conduces in the case of all believers to confirm their fellowship with Christ.

Luther’s Larger Catech., 247: ‘For this reason we go to the sacrament, because we there receive the treasure through and in which we secure forgiveness of sin.’—248: ‘Hence it is well named a food of the soul, which nourishes and strengthens the new man.’—Expos. simpl. xxi.: Est ea spiritualis manducatio corporis Christi … qua manente in sua essentia corpore et sanguine domini ea nobis communicantur spiritualiter … per spiritum s. qui videlicet ea quae per carnem et sanguinem domini pro nobis in mortem tradita parata sunt, ipsam remissionem peccatorum liberationem et vitam aeternam applicat et confert nobis ita ut Christus in nobis vivat.—Conf. Scot. xxi.: Sed unio haec et conjunctio quam habemus cum corpore et sanguine Jesu Christi in recto sacramenti usu operatione spiritus sancti efficitur, qui nos vera fide supra omnia quae videntur vehit, et ut vescamur corpore et sanguine Jesu Christi semel pro nobis effusi et fracti efficit.—Conf. Belg. xxxv.: Convivium hoc mensa est spiritualis, in qua Christus seipsum nobis cum omnibus bonis suis communicat efficitque ut in illa tam ipsomet quam passionis mortisque ipsius merito fruamur. —Melanchth., loc. theol.: Ad hoc igitur prodest manducatio poenitentiam agenti, videlicet ad fidem confirmandam.—Calv., Institt. iv. vii. 5: In hunc modum dominus voluit … vera etiam sui communicatione fieri ut vita sua in nos transeat et nostra fiat… . Ibid. 11: Per effectum autem redemtionem iustitiam sanctificationem vitamque aeternam … intelligo.

1. The one benefit of this participation is stated as being the confirming of our fellowship with Christ; and this includes the confirming of Christians in their union with each other,¹³ for the latter rests so entirely on their union with Christ that the union of an individual with Christ is unthinkable apart from his union with believers. In the credal passages just quoted this is made less prominent than could be wished, owing to the fact that in such discussions the question of the benefit of the sacrament customarily came up only in connexion with the questions we discussed above, where each individual participant is considered only as an individual. Hence light on the subject now before us is only to be sought from the enumeration of the benefits won by Christ, or under the all-embracing idea of sanctification. The general expressions for the effects of participation which stand out most clearly are confirmation in faith, and the nourishment of the new man or the passing over of Christ’s life into ours. Essentially both are the same, for living faith in Christ is simply the consciousness of our union with Him. It is usual, however, to emphasize two points specially—namely, that in the Supper we have renewed or confirmed to us the forgiveness of sins, and that we experience a heightening of the powers that make for sanctification. The two things really cannot be separated, and both rest on the fact that owing to the incomplete removal of sin even the new spiritual life has its progress interrupted by tendencies of a partially retrograde kind. For just as regeneration only becomes really firm and sure through our being in the status of sanctification, so, too, when union with Christ has been disturbed by sin, the certainty that the sin has been forgiven can only be made really secure through the feeling of restored and strengthened life. And for this the representation of the whole body of believers natural in the action of the Supper is an important factor. For it cannot but give rise in each individual to a strong excitation of the common Spirit, as well as to a heightened consciousness both of his general and his special vocation within this fellowship; and this cannot but be accompanied by a new impulse to develop his gifts.

As regards the relation of the Supper to the forgiveness of sins, it must first be observed that in this respect no distinction ought to be drawn between original and actual sin, as if baptism referred only to original sin and the Supper only to actual. Apart from the fact that baptism cannot be completed until a time when actual sin has already issued from original, and that it could not be an index of the beginning of the new life unless in consequence of it actual sin ceased to hinder fellowship in the blessedness of Christ—apart from this, baptism as the seal of regeneration has itself a relation to all actual sins, inasmuch as the sins of the regenerate are always ipso facto forgiven.¹⁴ But so it is, too, with the Supper; just as it is original sin which is perpetually being manifested in the actual sin which obstructs vital fellowship with Christ, so it is the forgiveness of original sin that we ever anew require to have confirmed to us. In the second place, the forgiveness of sins ought not to be divided in two, nor ought the sin-pardoning power of the sacrament of the altar to be regarded as of a special character, as though sins were first forgiven in one way through the justifying action of God in regeneration and then in another way through the special presence and communicative action of Christ in the sacrament.¹⁵ On the contrary, there is but one and the same sin-pardoning power; and just as regeneration is nothing but the general and ever-active relation of Christ to the totality of the human race, as that relation first comes in touch with the individual life, so the forgiveness of sins in the Supper is simply this living relationship as it reveals itself at a moment when Christ is presented in common to a number of individual believers.

In this connexion it may appear an enigma (for this does not rest on Christ’s institution) why, on their confession of sin, the Church should declare forgiveness to those communicating at any given time, before they have taken the sacrament. As an anticipation, however, this declarative act belongs to the Supper in the same way as, conversely, confirmation belongs to baptism as its subsequent consummation. Hence the practice in the Evangelical Church, which at first obtained here and there,¹⁶ of regarding absolution as a sacrament by itself, was soon given up. The confession of sin has no public ecclesiastical character save in relation to the Supper, and the wish to participate in the Supper cannot be otherwise expressed than through confession, for apart from sin there would be no need to renew our union with Christ. But when the Church proclaims the forgiveness of sin in connexion with such confession, what it really does is first to declare that the man who at this very moment feels the need of renewing his fellowship with Christ is put by the Church on an equal footing with those who already have satisfied that need, and next to give the needy soul thereby an assurance that he will find the satisfaction of his need in the sacrament. Hence every evangelical Christian will probably find that the sense of forgiveness which follows absolution imparted by the Church is no more than a shadow of that which he enjoys in partaking of the Supper itself, for it is there combined with the sense of a new influx of living spiritual power out of Christ’s fulness, such as really removes the obstructions of the new life and the lingering effects of sinfulness in general.

2. The consequences of all this for the procedure of the Church in the sacramental action are as follows. First, the Supper refers back to baptism, and therefore, as long as infant baptism is maintained, there can be no participation in the Supper before confirmation in the Protestant sense of that word. The communicating of children, in whom neither the consciousness of sin nor the consciousness of grace can be properly developed, is for that reason a grave abuse infested with superstition. Secondly, on none of the different views can participation in the Supper take place without Christ being presented in the spirit; hence there can rightly be no eucharistic action designed for those whose mental condition is defective or whose consciousness is obscured or on the very point of disappearing. Thirdly, the Supper was instituted by Christ as a common action; hence it should always be held so in the Church. Fourthly and lastly, the doctrine of the Greek and Roman Churches that the conjunction of the body of Christ with the bread even apart from its use in the sacrament constitutes a perpetual sacrifice offered to God,¹⁷ finds no support on our side and is for ever excluded; even when allowance is made for the mitigating explanation that this repetition (as it were) of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross is merely a memorial thereof.¹⁸ We know nothing of merits or satisfactions as intended here.¹⁹ The evasive suggestion that such sacrifice is not different from but identical with that accomplished on the cross,²⁰ has for us no value whatever, for in that case we should have to separate altogether the sacrifice in the death of Christ from the obedience in His life,²¹ and His original sacrifice would then be just as arbitrary a transaction and just as magical as the sacrifice of the Mass. In any case this latter sacrifice would have to be regarded as supplementary to Christ’s original sacrifice; the consequence of which would be, for one thing, that apart from this supplement God would not behold believers in Christ, and thus justification would be cancelled all over again, in defiance of the fact that the circumstances which alone could bring this about must already have been present to God’s foreknowledge in His justifying action. Along with this goes a second consequence, namely, that redemption—not merely as concerns its realization in men, viewed, that is, in its temporal aspect (where the matter is self-evident), but even when taken as the ground of the divine good-pleasure, i.e. in its eternal aspect—is only made complete through this supplementary action of the Church. And this means that in part men redeem themselves, for the priestly work of Christ would be insufficient apart from the sacrifice of the Mass. Hence, while there is no longer any need to describe the Mass as idolatrous, we persist in rejecting unconditionally the whole idea of a sacrifice subsequent to the end of all sacrifices; issuing as it does from a demonstrable misunderstanding, it confuses faith and therefore necessarily encourages superstition, and in particular falsifies the idea of the priesthood of all believers. It is thus that we regard it simply in itself, and irrespectively of the doctrine of transubstantiation, with which, of course, it hangs together.²²

§ 142. Second Theorem.—Unworthy participation in the Lord’s Supper conduces to judgment for the partaker.

Apol. Conf. iv.: Christus ait (1 Cor. 11¹⁹): illos sibi iudicium manducare qui manducant indigne, ideo pastores non cogunt hos qui non sunt idonei, ut sacramentis utantur.—Conf. Belg. xxxv.: Nemo itaque ad hanc mensam se sistere debet, qui prius sese recte non probaverit, ne de hoc pane edens et de hoc poculo bibens iudicium sibi edat et bibat. —Catech. Heidelb. lxxxi.: Hypocritae autem et qui non vere resipiscunt, damnationem sibi edunt et bibunt.

1. It is not easy to explain to oneself clearly how this paragraph is to be applied. In the first place, it is difficult to form an exact idea from what quarter the unworthiness indicated could arise; for one who is not a member of the Church has no access to the sacrament, while every true member of the Church is a partaker all the more worthy that the Supper through Christ’s institution so possesses a peculiar and independent power which marks it off from all other expressions and media of piety, that everyone must feel stimulated to the most appropriate mood of feeling. What first suggests itself, however, is this. The Supper was instituted as a common action and is publicly administered by the ministers of the Word, hence by Church order definite times and seasons must be appointed for it. Such order has the look of a summons, and it is possible that individuals—whether from custom merely or to meet the views of others—obey this summons without an inward longing for communion being awakened by any sense of their own spiritual deficiencies. In its origin such participation is unworthy, for it has no connexion with the purpose of the institution; without a lively sense of personal relationship to Christ there can be no active recollection of Him, as He is represented in the Supper. This will always be lacking whether we conceive the inward state in question as one of dull thoughtlessness not banished even by the action itself, or as the steady presence in consciousness of alien motives, which can hardly fail to be accompanied by a real, even if temporary, disbelief in the power and greatness of the sacrament.

2. If, however, the judgment described as a consequence of this unworthiness be taken as meaning consignment to eternal damnation, then it seems impossible to establish any connexion between the two things. Indeed, assuming that unworthy participation is an actual possibility and is attended by these dangers, and on the other hand that saving spiritual participation in Christ’s flesh and blood may be had elsewhere than in the sacrament, it looks as if we might well wish that the sacrament had never been instituted, and that we had been relegated solely to the extra-sacramental participation just referred to. But let us put the idea of eternal damnation provisionally on one side and concentrate on the question of unworthiness. In that case the thoughtlessness which turns so rich an opportunity into a meaningless external performance, and the insincerity which masks unfitting motives by an action so sacred, are a degradation of it which is eminently calculated to induce a condition of unreceptivity and hardening, such as we have every reason to regard as one element in damnation. This entirely justifies the wording of our paragraph. The Supper, that is to say, is seen to be a means of discrimination; fit and worthy participation in it promotes living fellowship with Christ, while participation of an unworthy kind is always rendering more ineffectual what is the most powerful means by which such fellowship can be strengthened, and thereby is always enhancing the power of hindrances. If now we consider how insuperable thoughtlessness must be, and still more how shameless insincerity must be, if they prove stronger than what is so sacred, and how little faith can keep hold of the Redeemer if what He has instituted can thus be torn away from its purpose, we shall find it quite possible to understand the fearful awe into which the devotional language of the ancient Church falls when treating of this subject. All the more essential is it that the public teaching of the Church should refrain from discouraging pronouncements not necessitated by the facts.

3. It is worth while to look back once again from this point at the distinction between the Lutheran and the Calvinistic view of the Supper, and feel how incapable it is of excusing a breach of Church fellowship. Neither of the two is at all successful in clearing up the third element which they accept, and which we have indicated by the phrase ‘sacramental participation.’ But a reference to our paragraph makes plain how much the distinction between them amounts to. The Lutheran view insists upon it that as sacramental participation in the body and blood is bound up with participation in the bread and wine, it is shared in by worthy and unworthy communicants alike; only that in the one case it conduces to judgment, but in the other to spiritual participation and, thereby, to salvation. The Calvinistic theory, which attaches sacramental participation to spiritual, can only rejoin that in such sacramental participation the unworthy have no share. If this is the one point of distinction that can be clearly formulated, the difference will become quite negligible, once unworthy participation has disappeared from actual practice. Such difference in doctrine in any case would vanish of itself, as the two Churches approximate to perfection, and is therefore no justification of their separate existence; for unworthy participation always is an evidence of imperfection in the Church. If the action of those who come to the sacrament is in harmony with the common sentiment of the whole body, and if the Church administering the sacrament develops a perfect sympathy between the whole body and the inward state of each member, no one in that case will seek to come to the sacrament unworthily, and the congregation will offer it to none whose participation would be unworthy. As the Church really advances to a better state, the only cases which tend to recall the difference between the two theories are bound to become fewer in number and gradually to disappear.

APPENDIX TO THE LAST TWO DOCTRINES: THE NAME ‘SACRAMENT’

§ 143. The Evangelical (Protestant) Church uses the name ‘Sacrament’ only for these two institutions, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which were instituted by Christ Himself and which represent His priestly activity.

1. It is natural enough that a term taken over from a realm wholly foreign to theology should have no exact delimitation. Hence it was only very gradually that the Roman Church reached its seven sacraments, and it was also by gradual steps that we fixed upon these two. Now the fundamental elements in the meaning of the term ‘sacrament’ we must accept very cautiously, for the word, although based on the New Testament representation of a good soldier of Christ, has given prominence to one of its elements which is of most precarious application. Hence we may well wish even more unreservedly than Zwingli did²³ that Church terminology had never adopted the word, and also that it might be found possible to dispense with it. This might be done by way of approximation to the Eastern Church, which has never adopted it, and which instead uses the term ‘mysteries’; but anything of the kind will certainly have to wait to a later time. A wish, however, is only rational in so far as it contributes to its own fulfilment; we have therefore prepared a way here for the change by treating of baptism and the Supper each by itself and without any definite relation to the term ‘sacrament,’ though as it is familiar we have used it now and then for convenience. The ordinary procedure (to begin with an explanation of this so-called general notion) is always tending to confirm the false idea that it is a strictly dogmatic conception expressive of something that is essential to Christianity, and that it is from the fact that they are exemplifications of this conception that baptism and the Supper derive their special value. That prejudice we may at least claim is not fostered by the treatment adopted here, for even the close relation we have established between baptism and the Supper has been kept quite independent of this traditional term (sacrament), and—like that between the two other pairs of doctrines in this Division—been based solely on a common relation to one of the essential activities of Christ’s vocation. So that it has the look of a mere accident that this middle pair of our six doctrines bears a common name, while the other pairs do not.

2. In any case it would be a fruitless proceeding to enter upon an etymological examination of the name, and seek thereby to decide what can and what cannot be subsumed under it. The controversy with the Roman Church, too, is quite an empty one, if it concerns merely the interpretation of the name and does not more than raise the question whether our interpretation is right or theirs, which applies the name to five other ordinances. The controversy has a meaning only if in some vital connexion our opponents are trying to give those five other actions an equal place with these two. In fact, however, there is an obvious dissimilarity among the actions and situations which for the Roman Church are embraced under the term ‘sacrament,’ while the closeness of the connexion between the two to which our Church restricts the term has already been shown. Hence, if the name is still to be used, nothing remains but to fix its meaning in a purely arbitrary way without regard to its original sense, as a communal designation of these two institutions. The usage of the Evangelical Church at first was not fixed either; not only was absolution received as a third sacrament, but Melanchthon also proposed to make ordination a sacrament as well.²⁴ Absolution, however, failed to keep its place, and the latter suggestion obtained no support. In general we think it more correct (and it is wholly on this model that our eucharistic service has been formed) to regard the absolution as a part of the communion service, as contrasted with which it has lost its sacramental independence; and it was equally correct to take confirmation as a part of baptism, once confirmation had had restored to it a definite significance. Baptism, however, was also a consecration to the true priesthood common to all Christians, whereas the Ministry of the Word in the narrower official sense is not common to all; hence dedication to it is not to be put on the same level as baptism. Marriage was only brought in because Scripture uses of it the term ‘mystery,’ which the term ‘sacrament’ displaced; but not only has it as a permanent state no similarity to our two ordinances, so that by analogy only consecration to marriage could be called a sacrament but not marriage itself, but in addition it has no place here because as a divine moral institution it has existed from the beginning quite irrespective of the mission of Christ. Finally, as regards the virtue sought to be attributed to extreme unction as a usage of the Apostolic Age, this could only be based upon the efficacy of the Church’s prayer in the name of Jesus, and the benediction of marriage could only rank as prayer of the same kind. Clearly enough, then, these other usages are distinct from our two sacraments. What is common to both, let the Church name them as it may, will always be this, that they are continued activities of Christ, enshrined in Church actions and bound up therewith in the closest way. By their instrumentality He exerts His priestly activity on individuals, and sustains and propagates that living fellowship between Him and us in virtue of which alone God sees individuals in Christ.

3. We cannot quite ignore here the connexion between our two sacraments and two Old Testament institutions, namely, circumcision and the Passover; a connexion which has been emphasized more or less at different times, but which has often been quite wrongly conceived. It is an entirely erroneous idea, for instance, that circumcision and the Passover had any particular relation to each other, as baptism and the Supper have. Circumcision as an Abrahamitic institution had no other relation to the Passover than to other Mosaic institutions. Apart from this, it is going much too far to assert that baptism took the place of circumcision and the Supper that of the Passover. Baptism was instituted quite independently of circumcision; moreover, circumcision was not put a stop to by baptism but by the preponderance of Gentile Christians over Jewish Christians, as well as by the intermingling of the two. The Supper did indeed attach itself to the Passover, but it was at once separated from it; while the Passover continued to be celebrated by Jewish Christians without any relation to the Supper. Still, it is not impossible that a closer examination of the original relation between the two might be the very thing to yield a more correct understanding of the difficult expressions used by Christ in instituting the Supper. And a comparison of the two New Testament institutions with those of the Old Testament has the very definite result of bringing out with great clearness the real difference between the old covenant and the new.

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Footnotes

1. Cf. Conf. Saxon., pp. 170 f. ↩

2. John 6⁵² ⁵⁶. ↩

3. John 15⁴⁻⁶ ↩

4. Matt. 26²⁶⁻²⁸ and Mark 14²²⁻²¹. ↩

5. Luke 22¹⁹· ²⁰ and 1 Cor. 11²⁴· ²⁵. ↩

6. John 13¹⁴. ¹⁵. ↩

7. Cf. R. Barclay, Apol. Th. xiii. ↩

8. Cf. 1 Cor. 11²³. ↩

9. Catech. Racov., Qu. 334-345. Zwingli is not to be confused with this party. He does call participation in the bread and wine in the Supper merely a thankful remembrance, but at the same time he always assumes a spiritual participation: Cum ad coenam domini cum hac spirituali manducatione venis … ac simul cum fratribus panem et vinum, quae jam symbolicum Christi corpus sunt, participas, jam proprie sacramentaliter edis cum scilicet intus idem agis quod foris operaris (Expos. fid. chr. Opp. ii. 555). ↩

10. Apparet coenam domini non eo institutam esse ut aliquid illic sumamus (Catech. Racov., Qu. 338). ↩

11. Itaque si per fractionem panis dominus corporis sui participationem vere repraesentat, minime dubium esse debet quin vere praestet atque exhibeat (Calv., Institt. iv. xvii. 10)… . Dico igitur in coenae mysterio per symbola panis et vini Christum vere nobis exhiberi, adeoque corpus et sanguinem eius … quo scilicet primum in unum corpus cum ipso coalescamus, deinde participes substantiae eius facti in bonorum omnium communicatione virtutem quoque sentiamus (ibid. 11). ↩

12. Sacramentum vim nullam habere potest ad conscientiam liberandam… . Toto igitur coelo errant qui sacramenta vim habere mundandi putant… . Sunt ergo sacramenta signa sive cerimoniae, quibus se homo ecclesiae probat (De vera et falsa relig.). ↩

13. Cf. 1 Cor. 10¹⁷ 12²⁷. ↩

14. Cf. § 111. ↩

15. Conf. Saxon., p. 173: Monemus etiam ne existiment propter hoc opus … remitti peccata, sed ut fiducia intueantur mortem et meritum filii Dei … et statuant propter ipsum nobis peccata remitti. ↩

16. Melanchth., loc. theol.: Numerantur haec sacramenta, baptismus, coena domini, absolutio. The same thing is meant by the order of Articles 8–13 in the Augsburg Confession. Hence, too, the Apology says: Vere igitur sunt sacramenta baptismus, coena domini, absolutio, quae est sacramentum poenitentiae. ↩

17. “Ἔκθεσις ὀρθοδ. πίστ. 107. Catech. Rom. ii. 77: Ut ecclesia perpetuum sacrificium haberet, quo peccata nostra expiarentur. ↩

18. Sacrosanctum missae sacrificium esse non solum nudam commemorationem sacrificii quod in cruce factum est, sed vere etiam propitiatorium sacrificium. ↩

19. Qui hoc sacrificium offerunt, quo nobiscum communicant, dominicae passionis fructus merentur et satisfaciunt (ibid. 79). ↩

20. Unum itaque et idem sacrificium esse fatemur et haberi debet, quod in missa peragitur et quod in cruce oblatum est (ibid. 53). ↩

21. Heb. 2¹⁰.¹⁷ 3² 5⁸. ↩

22. Heidelb. Catech., Qu. 80; Artic. Smalc. ii., de Missa; Expos. simpl. xxi. ↩

23. De vera et falsa relig., p. 194. ↩

24. Loc. theol., de num. sacram. ↩